Since last Wednesday night, there has been the annual festival in El Masroig. It started out with a communal dinner for the neighbors. I grilled about 7 pounds of beef fajitas to pretty good reviews. Quality beef is hard to find around here. When it comes to being gracious, these folks are hard to beat. There are four Joseps and one Jose' living within 30 feet of our house. The one with trumpet practices almost every day and is the resident musician on our block.
Thursday through Sunday brought more celebrating with dances, concerts and competitions. There were big parties starting at midnight and lasting until 4 a.m. just down the street from our house. We turned out for dancing Friday and Sat. and stayed until 3 a.m. both nights.
The festival wrapped up on Mon. with a late afternoon parade in front of the house and a "Dance of the Devils" after dark. Los Diablos paraded through town chasing people with fireworks. This kind of thing would be a hard sell with public safety types at home but, thoughtfully, the town furnished a team of paramedics and an ambulance in case you were burned or trampled.
Many of you have asked about the prevailing sentiment of people regarding the political and economic situation here. Some of these pictures tell the story. The scissors theme of the town's decorations and lots of other little things reflect a strong separatist feeling among many Catalunyans. People here tend to blame the federal government in Madrid for their troubles. The austerity enacted by the present government has hurt and we know several people who have taken deep pay cuts. Local elections are scheduled here in the near future and the results will be interesting to see. Thanks for keeping up with us and please stay tuned!
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